is it known who was the first author to indicate a Tanzer score of >100 ?

Have a nice weekend,

Michael

Toliver & Constable's Horrido, and
Aders & Held's Jagdgeschwader 51 "Moelders" (1984) are the oldest books that I can find that state that figure.

I suspect the latter is quoting the former

Toliver & Constable took a lot of licence with the figures they quoted for Tanzer and among others: Boehm Tettelbach (40 victories), Douglas Pitcairn (14 victories) and Rollwage (whose tally of "102" with 44 Viermots was eventually debunked by Prien)

Rollwage himself told my friend Bernd Barbas that he didn't know where the forty-four "viermots" came from, or his total of 102, possible the points system again. With Boehm-Tettelbach the forty is more like four(viermots)….can't blame the points system for that.

Strange that Wohnert should end up a Russian prisoner when the jet pilots seemed to escape this ordeal. Guess the only way to prove this guy in the hundred club would be a 1945 flugbuch.

Basicallythe Toliver/Constable book is so riddled with contradictions, errors ,typo errors and non-facts that ALL must be ignored if your looking for facts. Jochen Prien(later work), Erik Mombeek,Don Caldwell(JG 26) and Bernd Barbas's(JG 52 and related) books are 99+% fact. John and myself checked our work against Prien's later book claims, and apart from II./JG 2 match 99.9% or the time.

Rollwage himself told my friend Bernd Barbas that he didn't know where the forty-four "viermots" came from, or his total of 102, possible the points system again. With Boehm-Tettelbach the forty is more like four(viermots)….can't blame the points system for that.

Strange that Wohnert should end up a Russian prisoner when the jet pilots seemed to escape this ordeal. Guess the only way to prove this guy in the hundred club would be a 1945 flugbuch.

Basicallythe Toliver/Constable book is so riddled with contradictions, errors ,typo errors and non-facts that ALL must be ignored if your looking for facts. Jochen Prien(later work), Erik Mombeek,Don Caldwell(JG 26) and Bernd Barbas's(JG 52 and related) books are 99+% fact. John and myself checked our work against Prien's later book claims, and apart from II./JG 2 match 99.9% or the time.

Kind Regards

Johannes

Cheers Johannes,
But please, Nick is my first name and I prefer to be informal if it does not offend you.

As for Rollwage,
71 claims of which 14 are counted as Viermots, as per Prien...
102 (as quoted by Toliver and Constable) minus 71 = pretty much the total of the "remaining" viermots. So my theory (laugh at it or agree with it as you see fit...) is that Toliver & Constable took it upon themselves to award him the tally of 102 based on a misread of his total of 14 Viermots. 14 was mistaken for 44, and the difference was added on to his known tally of 71....

From what I can find, the first edition of Tolliver’s & Constables ‘Horrido’ was published in 1968, which to me, make’s Obermaier’s book on Ritterkreuztragers that was first published in 1966 the more likely original source of many of the quoted scores. Though both books have been republished several times since, there seems to have been no real amendments – so the age of these works should give some indication as to reliability of data especially when many records didn’t surface until many years later.

Anyway, if you read the Obermaier’s book carefully, in many cases he uses such words as at least, possible, probable and about, which unfortunately, several authors have since taken various liberties of his works to quote these as definitive. (It also has several obvious errors including typos.)

For example, using Johannes example of Fassong, Obermaier stated that Fassong had “at least 75 but he probably gained about 136” – so nearly every list since is quoting 136 not the 75. Depending on who’s research you follow, we now know that around 60-70 can be identified as confirmed in various documents. It is possible that he had 75 confirmed claims and that is probably the correct figure. I’m not sure where Obermaier got 136 from – maybe someone quoted this but as Obermaier didn’t have any hard evidence, he then said probably – who knows? I have not seen 136 quoted in any document prior to Obermaiers 1966 book. The 136 total that is used has no hard proof except what is quoted in Obermaiers book as probable?

As to Tanzer, I find the quoted total in Obermaier’s work very interesting. Obermaier states that Tanzer received the RK at 35 victories which is in line with recent research. However, he also stated that Tanzer had 143 victories (incl 17 x 4 engined bombers in the west) in 723 missions including 187 fighter bomber sorties. (some sources quote 128 for the East which I think came from this with 143 – 17). I find these numbers are too precise to have been estimates or quoted in here-say – especially the mission totals? As Johannes stated, Tanzer flew operationally from March 42 to May 43 when wounded to make his 35 claims and receive the RK. It’s the claims after this that cannot be supported by recent research. Tanzer recovered from his wounds in November 1943 but had limited opportunity until late in the war, so it’s unlikely that he made 108 claims in the last 3 months of the war. As Tanzer died in a plane crash in 1960, it’s possible but unlikely he was sourced by Obermaier for his book - so all this tend to make me think that some form of written documentation had survived (and was in misinterpreted?). What did Obermaier have to give such precise figures I’d love to know? I have seen no evidence surface to date that would support such figures!

This is not a shot at Obermaier as his work was ground breaking in 1966 – we have learnt a lot since then. The whole point of this is that if we can find Obemaier’s records/notes for his book we would be able to clear up this issue and many more by finding where Obermaier got his information from and how reliable the source would have been!

Regards,

Craig…

__________________
There is always three sides to an argument, Your's, Theirs and the Truth. Sometimes the Truth is hard to find.

With regards to von Fassong, guess it proves that Obermaier was not afraid to admit his earlier mistake. I did acquire many of his claim reports, this included one from a JG 51 staffel covered only by the mikrofilms in a time and date type, thus von Fassong's total should be sixty-four, and should not be any more because he was lost only when the mikrofilms cease, not after. Obermaier was also very precise about the total and western/viermot totals of Karl Gratz, but of his 138 confirmed claims only six in the West, and two viermots were amongst them, not seventeen and four viermots……….exactly those also quoted for Tanzer. Actually very often I find the totals tally with Obermaier, but much less achieved in the Western sphere, and viermots often half of those quoted(like Bühligen). Obermaier's work was inspirational and way ahead of it's time...….my childhood bible.

Sorry Nick about the Hector, must have just caught your surname before typing.
I am flattered that a fifth volume would be well accepted. As I say John Foreman is seventy-six now and doesn't feel he can squeeze a fifth volume out of himself(certainly not at the moment), but given time and a little coaching I might be able to manage it.
Personally I spent thirty-six year collating the information prior to publication, and worked with John for fifteen years on it, I would send him hundreds if not thousands of amendments/corrections over this period. So for fifteen years I came home from work did some rowing(1000 km per year), ate whilst still sweating, and researched until sleep time, up in the early hours to do more research, before going to work.

Basically I am for the small scoring pilots, so I would personally like to publish additions/amendments to volume one to four aces, I have collated a lot of information not on the mikrofilms since publication, especially 1945. Also would like to do a section on new aces know to me, a section on possible aces i.e not five confirmed claims, but five plus possible, a list of ALL known claimers to myself......some 7600 pilots totalling 66600 confirmed claims. I have just worked on an article with Erik Mombeek about the "points system" and how a claim was actually made paperwork wise and think a section on this may be helpful, this article with Erik also dwelled upon rudder markings and there differing types.
I have had so much help, especially since publication by so many enlightening people who all have my most sincere thanks.